Orange
by Raye of the Sunshine
Summary: Orihime wants to prove herself to the others. How far will she go to do it? Character death, one-sided IchiHime, requited if you squint.


Hello! So this story was done for an assignment for my creative writing class. We were supposed to take a character (either our own or someone already existing) and kill them, as well as to make the death memorable. Well as you can see, I chose characters from Bleach. :) I was actually tempted to make it Karin, but I've killed her in three stories already (one isn't on this website), so I picked someone new. (:

Setting: somewhere in Karakura, presumably a park or a back alley. Afternoon to late afternoon. Bleach doesn't belong to me, because if it did, Orihime's boobs would definitely be smaller (did I say this before? Oh well, it's still true).

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It wasn't everyday that Orihime found herself fighting. Kurosaki-kun or some other shinigami were the ones to take care of Hollows, not her. She was a healer, after all. Generally she would arrive in time to take care of wounds and other such injuries.

But that wasn't the situation she found herself in. Kurosaki-kun was surprisingly out early by a whop to the head, and no one else in the area anywhere. If she didn't get Tsubaki out now and destroy that thing, both of them would be dead. Well, again. For the third time. How many times had Kurosaki-kun died but at the same time not?

Her shield protecting the boy behind her, she sped away from him so that the Huge Hollow would follow her. Hopefully it would; she wasn't as spiritually tasty as Kurosaki-kun but she was alive and interesting. "Come on, come on," she muttered with gritted teeth, clutching her hairpins in her fist.

The great ugly brute looked at her for a moment and started to follow after her. A portion of relief swept through her as she continued to back away. This relief was wiped away in an instant when it decided she wasn't worth the effort and turned to her friend. "No!" she cried in fear, and ran as fast as she could back to her previous location. "Tsubaki!" she called, and out burst the fairy from one of her hairpins.

With a mere pointing of her index finger, he turned into a disc of golden light and sped toward the Huge Hollow's arm, which was lumbering towards Kurosaki-kun's prone form. She dashed closer to it as the arm was sliced off, hoping that soon her friend would wake up. "No, I can handle it," she insisted to herself. He didn't have to save the day every time.

Part of her wanted to beat this monster to prove to everyone that she _could_, in fact, take care of herself. That she could be trusted to be alive by the end of the battle. Everyone would see that she wasn't some useless crybaby to be brought out at the finish to clean up the wounds.

A groan sounded from the body behind her and for a second she looked back. Kurosaki-kun was coming around. _Just watch,_ she mentally instructed him. _See how I've improved!_ Facing forward, Orihime pointed her projectile again at the giant before her, hoping that this would make it disappear.

Tsubaki raced towards the target, straight for its hideous white spider mask. Instead of slicing neatly through, he bounced, chipping the mask and spinning off into the sky. Orihime gasped in horror as her weapon tumbled to the ground a great distance away from her. What now?

"I-Inoue," Kurosaki-kun groaned, trying to get up behind her.

"No, Kurosaki-kun; please let me handle this," she instructed, harsher than she had ever spoken to him. If he was surprised, she didn't see.

She tried calling Tsubaki back as the Hollow moved again. Even with one arm it was still dangerous. Tsubaki wasn't responding to her calls, so she crept closer to him, trying to avoid the Hollow's attacks.

The elation she felt when her fairy finally responded and sped back to her, presumably through the Hollow and killing it, was short lived. About the same time, the Hollow, with a surprising amount of speed, stabbed her in the stomach with one of its claws.

Orihime gasped and collapsed against the hand, feeling immense heat and pain spread through her body. She heard Kurosaki-kun scream and that jolted her enough to continue commanding Tsubaki to finish his attack.

She barely registered the claw still in her stomach dissipating when Tsubaki finally came through and sliced the monster in half. Blood was seeping into her clothes and down her legs and onto the ground that she fell onto with a thump, her pretty blue hairpins tumbling to the dirt.

Her hair fell into her face and that was all she could focus on: the bright auburn tresses that pooled around her, mixing with the red red blood she was practically swimming in. Orihime was rolled onto her back, Kurosaki-kun's face appearing above her, his eyes wide and mouth open in a scream. It was getting harder to breathe; her breath came out in short gasps now and everything was getting dimmer and muter. "I-Ichigo," she stuttered, pouring all her love into the only time she would ever say his first name.

Orange. She focused on the orange of his hair as it glowed in the dim sun. Orange. _Orange._

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So? Was it a memorable death? Did you like my colorful descriptions? :D Comments and questions, please review!


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